Carola van Dyke is a contemporary textile artist, and her chosen medium is thread, which she uses to explore her fascination with colours, textures, layers and light. She uses machine stitching in a contemporary instinctual and impressionistic way; her accomplishment in these embroidered tapestries lies in the seemingly effortless drawing with thread. Tactility is at the heart of Carola’s process and her work explores the contrasts between traditional and modern, fragile and rough, handmade and machine-made; through this interplay, her artworks unite craft and decorative fine art.
Carola creates wall hangings with floating tiny individual stitches, where colour is the driving force. She wishes to achieve a delicate result with threads by pushing the boundaries of embroidery, bringing a more refined and unexpected outcome.Her creative approach lies in merging innovation and tradition through research & experimentation, and so she is contiually refining her craft skills for each piece she undertakes.
Carola says: “I am inspired by observation and appreciation of the natural world, 17th century Dutch flower paintings, European embroidery… I examine these historic sources through a contemporary lens, re-image them, in pursuit of something new and unexpected. My work explores how to replicate nature with thread, either in bloom or decayed, often looking just at a detail of the subject. This dramatic, curious quality represents nature in a rough and vulnerable manner, but is also associated with the growing awareness of the environment. Currently I’m focusing on insects, wings, flowers & plants and their preservation.”